It is well known in motor vehicles to restrain an occupant in the seat by a lap belt disposed across the lap and a shoulder belt disposed diagonally across the chest. It is also known to connect the outboard belt ends to the door so that the swing geometry of the door automatically moves the belts between a restraining position about the occupant and a stowed position forwardly of the seat in response to movement of the door between open and closed positions.
It has been recognized as desirable to move the outboard lap belt end further forwardly and/or upwardly upon opening of the door to facilitate occupant ingress or egress. Keppel et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,680,883, issued Aug. 1, 1972, and assigned to the assignee of this invention, provides a track on the door having a guide loop traveling therein to move the outboard lap belt end forwardly and upwardly upon opening of the door.
Kato et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,004,829, issued Jan. 25, 1977 provides a spring steel strip which is fed into a door mounted lap belt upon opening movement of the door to stiffen the lap belt along the door panel. Ewert et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,794,135, issued Feb. 26, 1974 and assigned to the assignee of this invention provides an articulated seat belt positioner comprised of a series of hingedly connected segments articulated by the tensioning of a spring strip passing through apertures of the segment members upon movement of the door.